Guild Wars 2

Okay, I just hit 80 on my first character, which is of course a mesmer. And, fittingly for the profession, I are confused!

While leveling I tinkered with both a staff-based condition/cripple build and a sword-based direct damage build. I liked the faster speed of the direct DPS build with a greatsword equipped. But I couldn’t really get the hang of the regular sword/focus. I’d summon the 5 phantasm, and that would do okay damage, but then it just stands there even when the mob moves, which seems pointless. The 3+2 trick to leap into battle, immobilize and then do direct damage with sword slashes worked fine, but then I’d stand there hacking away, not doing all that much damage while in direct melee range with my flimsy robes. Usually I’d dodge backwards to get out of melee range and then have nothing to do until I could switch back to my GS.

I also missed the staff abilities. But I’m not sure if it’s practical to go GS+staff because they seem to work in opposite ways, one being for direct damage and the other condition-based.

I’ve read up on shatter builds and don’t really understand how they work. I’ve also read a number of people here saying they don’t work well in a number of situations.

My primary interests are PvE and WvW. I’ve leveled up to 80 entirely through exploring, personal story and living world events, and have yet to touch a dungeon or even really do more than briefly set foot into Orr. I’ve dabbled in WvW but only enough to learn that there was no point being there until I hit 80, had a decent build and somewhat decent gear.

I’ve managed to amass a small warchest of 40 gold but obviously can’t afford to spend a lot of cash regearing multiple times.

Anyway.. can anyone suggest a decent newbie-friendly level 80 build that balances damage with survivability and is reasonably fun to play? Thanks.

With sword focus, I find that it helps to do the 3 leap, then 5 then 2. This will help the phantasm get more hits off because of the immobilize and since you will already be in melee range so the target will be less likely to move.

First off I would say embrace Orr and dungeons. If you even want to stand a chance against other players, you need to learn conditions, attack tells, what damage you can take and what you need to dodge. In open world pve, Orr is best place because so many enemies have CCs. Dungeons are the next step after that as two or three wrong moves will kill you.

Second, don’t expect to master this class quickly. In my opinion, it is one of the best designed professions because of how adaptable it is. One thing to constantly keep in mind is that most skills have a “good for me, bad for you” theme. Take Blurred Fury (Sword 2) for instance. While it does great damage, it also works as a great dodge. In situations where other professions have to evade to avoid a major hit, you can pop it and keep attacking.

You’re also not looking at the focus’ phantasm the right way. The fact that it remains nearly immobile makes it a great shield against ranged attackers. Thanks to how well we can position ourselves while in combat, its not hard to keep the phantasm between us and our opponents. Trait it with reflection and it can become a serious threat if not dealt with.

Greatsword/Staff is very compatible when you wrap your head around how they do damage. The greatsword is best with power but, because it has so many multi-hit attacks, it can be coupled with condition procs and work off of condition damage very well. The Sharper Images trait and the Superior Sigil of Earth are great choices. The staff’s auto attack seems ranged but it actually works best just outside of melee to take full advantage of the bounces. It scales pretty well with power plus it has vulnerability and burn procs so it also loves condition damage. On top of that, the auto attacks of clones do more damage to enemies that have conditions on them. Just be sure to stock up on precision to get crits so you can get those procs.

Do not underestimate staff’s Phase Retreat. It works even when you are stunned, it can teleport you out of crystal prisons and the clone it leaves can be bolstered with on-death shatters and purposely left in the line of fire to trigger them.

Basically what I’m saying is you need to change the way you’re thinking when you play a mesmer. You want to confuse your opponents first and/or punish them for acting without thinking. Damage comes second.

Thanks for the replies.

I started exploring Orr yesterday. It wasn’t that I was avoiding it but rather that I didn’t feel I was ready for it. Hoping to hit some dungeons too.

I know the profession is tough and I like that it will take some practice to get down right. One thing I find difficult is getting the timing on weapon swaps down. So as you say, sword #2 can be used offensively or defensively, but I have to be able to swap to it, and then it’s only good for a couple of seconds. A lot of things in this game seem to only work for a second or two, which I’m not really used to.

On focus #5.. when you say to “trait it with reflection” can you tell me exactly what that means?

I’m actually finding that I’m leaning towards GS/staff for serious combat now.. it’s a combo I used much earlier when I was leveling. The only thing is that I am then stuck in slow-mesmer mode, which means I need to get ($ for me) superior runes of the traveler. I probably will do that, though.

How do I bolster clones with on-death shatters? This is the thing I’m having trouble with, figuring out which traits I should use, as they all seem to have value in some ways, not in others, and to be somewhat mutually exclusive. Thanks.

If I do want to go GS/staff, which I’m leaning towards now, should I be trying to bolster condition damage using my armor at all? I’m mostly in berserker stuff now (though not very good berserker stuff yet) and so my condition damage modifier is very low. Would I be better off with Rampager’s, to get more condition damage instead of crit damage?

But then that has Power secondary rather than primary. Always tradeoffs.

Learning when to swap is just something you have to do. While many people will swap, burn all their cooldowns and then swap again, I usually swap only before battle and then only in battle if I switch tactics. I pace my skill use so they’re not all on cooldown at the same time. The rest of my time is spent positioning while auto-attacking. The only time I would purposely blow all my cooldowns is when I’m desperately trying to get enemy aggro. It’s possible to do this, even with melee weapons, when you learn enough evasive tricks to stay in melee range and practically never get hit. Blurred Frenzy is one of those tricks.

As for focus reflection, it’s been a while since I played so I can’t quite recall the name but there is a trait that will cut 20% or so off its cooldowns and make them reflect projectiles. It is quite delicious.

Slow out-of-combat movement speed is a problem ALL mesmers have. Until anet ever decide to address it, it’s something you’ll just have to deal with.

Just like the focus, there are traits that will make illusions cause status ailments when they are killed (but not when shattered). One trick to take advantage of this is to purposely spawn clones in the line of fire. The Deceptive Evasion trait will have you spawning clones faster than Kamino. It’s the basis of many builds.

As for berzerker, don’t even bother until you can dodge just about anything thrown at you. While it is powerful and way too favored by the game’s mechanics, it turns you into a glass cannon. All that power means nothing if you can’t stay on your feet long enough to take advantage of it.

As for berzerker vs rampager, pve favors raw damage while the current pvp meta likes conditions. In fact, the game places hard limits on conditions because the coding can’t handle extreme situations involving them while raw damage has no such problem. I prefer rampager though. Mostly because I’m being a hipster but I also like the idea of constant pressure than damage spikes. Your mileage may vary.

Thanks for the replies.

I’m getting very good at dodging and use deceptive evasion a lot.

Overall I’m finding mesmer to have a rather scary learning curve. :/ Even reading threads here in this forum I find myself often rather lost, not even really understanding what people are talking about. I can see it’s going to take a while, and I may end up having to level up a different class to 80 while I get used to this.

@Qaelyn, without a doubt mesmer is probably one of the most difficult classes to master, but like with anything else, with time you get used to it.

Are you a member of the OMFG? One of the guild’s primary purposes is to assist other mesmers like yourself learn more about the class. There are clearly designated teachers you can PM anytime who are more than willing to help out. Sometimes the best way to learn is to have an active conversation which that format affords.

I would be happy to send you an invite if you’re interested.

To answer your original question, there are many different viable builds you could play in PvE but it comes down to the style of play you enjoy. When you choose a style, you can then commit to a build and gear up for it. You mentioned the on-death traits. While those can certainly work in PvE/dungeons, the universally accepted best choice is going to be something power based (berserker/knights/cavaliers, etc). Building something around the on-death traits is typically found in condition damage builds and better suited for WvW or PvP.

A couple other suggestions. When I first hit level 80, I wasn’t using focus yet so I purchased a set of centaur runes to help with the speed issue. Their primary stat is power, they’re fairly cheap and will do the job nicely until you decide which direction to take with your build. Also, just FYI GS/Staff is typically best suited for shatter builds. You can certainly use that combo in phantasm builds but you lose some important AoE capability by not having an AoE capable phantasm on each weapon set.

Yeah, I am getting used to it. At least I don’t die all the time now. I’m actually glad it is not easy to master, that makes it interesting. Last game I tried I got bored of in a week.

But I want to get far enough down the curve to be .. more useful.

Not a member of OMFG, great name, and I’d be grateful for an invite. Sounds like just what I need!

So far what I like most is open world PvE and I really want to get good enough to do WvW, focusing on smaller encounters or solo roaming (I’m useless in the zerg stuff and it seems senseless.) I prefer GS/staff of the weapons I’ve used so far. I know the sword is supposed to provide the best DPS and so forth, but I just don’t seem to like standing in melee with it all that much. (Which is ironic since I just pulled a fairly valuable exotic sword..)

I’ve looked into shatter builds and I understand the general concept, but I’m not sure what abilities, traits and gear I need to make one that works well. Any help there would be appreciated.

Great tip on the runes of the centaur. Does the level 6 swiftness work in combination with the ability that heals when you charge a mantra?

The runes of the centaur do work with the mantra heal in the heal slot, but not the mantra heal that comes from recharging a mantra with traits. There is also an internal cooldown (10s) on those runes.
In terms of building & choosing gear, it is best to pick either condition damage or direct damage. Hybrid builds are typically subpar, as the skills/traits benefit one or the other and not both.
Hmm. Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but it is one of my favourite builds. Despite being old, it is a mesmer classic. It requires active play, with survivability coming from mobility and your damage coming from incredible burst. IIRC, it is 0/20/20/0/30, and is called the Shattercat Mist. It uses Staff + Sw/F

Anyway, some tips on the Sword/Focus weaponset.
The iWarden is fantastic, but in WvW (and some PvE) you need to combo for his attacks to hit.
One of my favourite combos is:
4 (curtain) -> 5 (warden)/>4 (curtain pull) -> 3(iLeap clone) -> 3 (iLeap immobilize)-> 2 (Blurred Frenzy).
The only difficult part is timing the curtain pull halfway through the warden summon. The pull is instant and won’t break the cast, but will knockdown your target, leaving them vulnerable to about 1/2 the warden’s attacks. The iLeap follow-up keeps your target there, finishing the warden cycle (about 5s) and allows you to add a blurred frenzy, and then, if you’re a shatter build, a shatter. If done properly in an average build, this is an unavoidable 10k damage, provided your foe doesn’t block, invuln, teleport, etc.

edit: This is how I typically open when I am going in for a burst/kill. However, in WvW especially, it is best to begin the fight with staff auto, 3 (Warlock), 2 (Phase Retreat), auto; etc., kiting all the while to get a feel for the opponent.

Okay, I thought staff was for condition builds and sword/focus for direct damage, so now I’m oh-so-confused.

Qaelyn.7612:

Not a member of OMFG, great name, and I’d be grateful for an invite. Sounds like just what I need!

Invite sent, let us know what role you would like: Teacher, Tester or Scholar

Qaelyn.7612:

Okay, I thought staff was for condition builds and sword/focus for direct damage, so now I’m oh-so-confused.

Staff is a generally awesome weapon. It can be used in DD builds for the shatter (clone production from PR) and condition builds. Its excellent mobility is good for all types of gameplay as well.

skcamow: Is there a “clueless stumbler” option?

Requiem: Thanks, though I’m still unclear on what abilities/traits I need to make an effective shatter build or condition build. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.